1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile telephones, and, more particularly, to methods of remotely controlling a mobile telephone via an external device.
2. Description of the Related Art
State of the art phones provide very limited options for remote controlling the phone. Bluetooth makes it possible to access a very specific functionality from a remote device. For example, the Bluetooth hands-free profile makes it possible to dial a number in the phone book and then transmit the voice data to a remote device such as a hands-free device or the audio system of a car. If new functions of the phone need to be controlled, then new Bluetooth profiles need to be provided and be supported by the phone as well as by the controlling device. This requirement of providing and supporting new Bluetooth profiles significantly reduces the flexibility of this approach and generally makes it impossible to upgrade devices deployed in the field, such as cars.
Nokia's International Patent Publication No. WO2006067541 describes a phone remote control designed for the car environment. Nokia's invention is tightly integrated with a limited amount of functions of the phone. Only applications that have been specifically designed with this technology in mind are able to make use of the remote controller functionality. The invention does not teach how to control an unlimited number of third party applications running on a phone that was not designed with this extension in mind.
In order to work around the above-described limitations, some phones allow their display content to be shared with a remote device. This can be achieved by using a physical connector for video output. Alternatively, state of the art technologies such as X Windows, Remote Desktop Protocol, and Virtual Network Computing make it possible to transmit the display content of the phone to another device and allow remote controlling of any application that is running on the phone. While this approach makes it possible to remotely control virtually every function or application running on the phone, it is quite limited in terms of how much the controlling device can interact with the content provided by the phone. This solution transmits the unmodified screen content to the screen of another device. Advanced operations such as rearranging the screen or the application layout, or even filtering or controlling content as might be required in a driver navigation system, are not possible. Furthermore, none of the existing technologies teach how to integrate output from applications of the remote controlled device to match the graphical representation of applications running on the controlling computer.
An alternative approach to remote controlling has been used by devices such as network routers or Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) media servers. Theses devices make it possible to use a web browser running on a remote computer to connect to the router or media server and display and operate the device without physically touching it. While this approach is very convenient being that no software beyond the web browser is required on the remote controlling computer, it is a limited approach because routers or media servers offer only a small and fixed set of functions that are exposed through the web browser. In contrast to smart phones, these devices do not allow new applications to be added. As a consequence, the functionality of the remote control interface will be static.
State of the art technologies such as Johnson Controls' Bluetooth Mobile Device Gateway make it possible to transmit sensor information from the car to a portable navigation system which is connected using Bluetooth or USB. The portable navigation system will process the information and display output on its own screen and loudspeaker.
What is neither disclosed nor suggested by the prior art is a method of remotely controlling a mobile electronic device wherein the method does not have the limitations of the prior art as described above.